The virtue of procrastination

Someone on Twitter wrote:

"What is the evolutionary advantage of putting off a task? This is the sort of thing that makes me believe in original sin."

Without thinking, I immediately shot back:

"Every action has risks, including death. So the best strategy is to save all your energy for when you really need it by doing nothing UNLESS you need it. This means real needs, like escaping the tiger; not socially-constructed 'needs' like impressing your neighbors." 

Probably I'm wrong. But I felt I had to put in a good word for procrastination.

"What the hell is happiness anyhow?"

Marie is being confounded by philosophy.

You remember that last month she agreed to receive formal transmission of the Five Mindfulness Trainings. Since then she has been thinking about them regularly, which is good. (Surely that must be one of the points of receiving them formally, no?) At the same time she's had a routine share of bad luck, including a trip-and-fall accident at her work that banged up her knee. And of course she joined me at the Schmidts' farm a couple weeks ago, to help with Ma Schmidt's decline.

Yesterday she wrote me an email that ran, in part:

I am in a little pain today from my knee (I didn't elevate it last night, and apparently I still should have!), and yesterday it really hit me how sad I am that Ma Schmidt is dying. Oh, and the sweet potatoes I put in the soup I made for lunch today aren't very sweet, so the balance of flavors is off a bit.  Whine, whine, there's always something!

So, I am thinking of the Second Mindfulness Training, the part that goes "I am aware that happiness depends on my mental attitude and not on external conditions, and that I can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already have more than enough conditions to be happy."

I'm going, ok, so I can be happy while being sad at losing Ma Schmidt, and while experiencing pain, and.... um, what the hell is happiness anyhow?

Yes, exactly.*

I replied:

You talk about whether you can be happy while losing Ma Schmidt, and I remember while we were there she would regularly say (trying for sarcasm), "Gosh, this must be a great vacation for you, looking after your buddy's old sick mother!" When she said that I'd always try to say something reassuring, but I never told her what I was really thinking. What I really thought, as a reply, was, "Yes, actually it is. Not in the sense that it is FUN, exactly. But I can't think of anywhere else I would rather be, under the circumstances." (And of course I never said that out loud because it just didn't sound like the kind of thing you can say out loud.)

Does that mean I was "happy"? Or does it mean that the vocabulary of happiness is too small, and is missing a few dimensions? I vote for the latter choice, and maybe that option works for you too.

And actually she agreed:

Yes on the "nowhere I'd rather be."  If someone I love is dying, I want to be there; and if someone else I love is overwhelmed because their mother is dying, I want to help.  But you're right, that's hard to say.

Yes happiness may need some redefining.  I am thinking of water again, the surface and the depths.

__________

* There's actually a long philosophical discussion of exactly this question. Epicurus maintained that the wise man could be happy, even on the rack. Aristotle, for his part, said this is nonsense. (Nic. Eth., book VII, chapter 13, Bekker page 1153b.)       

1500th post

Oh my gosh. Another milestone. (My last milestone posts were my 500th post and my 1000th post.)

Fifteen hundred is a very large number. And it has taken me over seventeen years to get there. That's approximately 86.5 posts per year on average. Of course there has been fluctuation. 

My scantest full year was 2016, when I first got back in touch with Marie. I wrote her many long emails, but I posted only 28 articles here.

My busiest full year was 2014, when (for a couple of months) I was trying to post every day. In the end I published 175 articles here.

My busiest full year on the blog since 2016 was 2023. That year I hiked the West Highland Way with Debbie, and I spent two weeks in Paris with Marie. For each trip, I posted one article per day, plus follow-on articles meditating on other topics that surfaced during each trip. So that year had a lot of content. (In the end, there were 123 posts in all for the entire year.)

As a side note, I had better confess that these milestones are a little moveable. From time to time—rarely, but when I think I have a good reason—I will write a post in one year but publish it with the date of an earlier year. Usually this is if I am finally getting around to writing a post that happened long ago but that I have been too lazy to write before now. The result is that all my enumerations change. Therefore the post that I called my "500th post" was in fact the 500th post in sequence at the time that I wrote it. But if you start at the beginning and count them all now, it might no longer be the 500th, because some other (later) posts might have snuck into the line before it. But I can't help that. It's still close enough. And I will continue to refer to the 500th-post and 1000th-post milestones as if those numbers were accurate. 

Here are some concrete numbers:

• Between my first post and my 500th post there were 1705 days, or 4.7 years (4 years and 8 months).
• Between my 500th post and my 1000th were an additional 2408 days, or 6.6 years (6 years and 7 months).
• Between my 1000th post and this one were a further 2177 days, or 5.96 years (5 years plus 11½ months).
• Therefore the total duration of the blog has been 6290 days, or 17.2 years (just shy of 17 years and 3 months).  

In my one thousandth post, I wrote: "At my 500th post, I was able to say that -- once I picked up the blog again after a three-month hiatus at the beginning of 2008 -- I had never gone an entire month without posting. That's no longer true: April 2016, January 2018, and October 2018 all went by with no updates. That's six months out of 135." I am delighted to report today that this sum is still true. Since that time, there have been no more months with zero posts.

My average number of posts per month has been as follows, for the three meanings of the word "average":

• Mean: 7.2 (down from 7.29 at my 1000th post)
• Median: 6 (same as at my 1000th post)
• Mode: 2 (down from 3 at my 1000th post)

And here, like the last two times, is a chart of my total number of posts per month since I started. (I have included posts from the Patio in a different color, though I have not included them in any of the foregoing statistics.) And yes, that is indeed a colossally geeky thing to do!

I also spent a little time trying to summarize the kinds of topics I covered in my first 500 posts, then my next 500, and then this last 500. On the whole that didn't prove to be a very natural way of dividing the history, but a few broad patterns did emerge.

Posts 1-500: My main topic, eclipsing all others, was trying to understand my marriage to Wife. Also I talked about the boys through the end of middle school (and Son 1 was two years into high school by then). And this period covered my affair with D.

Posts 501-1000: This span covered my separation from Wife, and brought the boys nearly through the end of their college educations. (As of my 1000th post, Son 2 still had one year to go in college.) This period covered my affair with Debbie, and my meeting Marie. Also included were the death of Father, and my progressive dissatisfaction with my work. 

Posts 1001-1500: This span had comparatively little to say about Wife, but showed the boys moving out on their own and launching their respective careers. It addressed the stabilization of my relationship with Debbie as loving-but-platonic, so that there's no conflict with Marie (but I still have two girlfriends!). Also during this time I lost my job and started blogging professionally. I became particularly aware that Mother is aging. I started reading John Michael Greer, and laying out Tarot cards for myself. Also I heard that four college classmates died during this time, including Fillette and Flora; I heard from Cassius that he was planning to transition to a woman; most recently I visited Schmidt while his mother was on the edge of dying. And of course any posts related to COVID-19 came in this block. 

Who says nothing ever changes in my life? There might be more, too, if I bothered to study it. But this is a quick off-the-cuff summary. 

   

Hide your crazy

The drive from here to the Schmidts' farm is a long one. It takes pretty much a solid day. And it can get boring. So to beguile the time (and keep from falling asleep) I turn on the radio.

I don't have a list of favorite stations, because I normally don't listen to the radio unless I'm driving long distances. On the other hand, through trial and error I've found that the most reliable style of music for keeping me awake is Country.

Normally I wouldn't think of myself as a Country music fan, but for this specific purpose it's very useful. The beat is usually strong, and the tunes are usually catchy; so it engages my nervous system and keeps me awake. That's what I'm looking for on long drives.

Also the sentiments are pretty straightforward. Nothing is layered. Everything is on the surface. So I don't have to work too hard or think too deeply to follow it. Since a good bit of my attention is focused on the road and the other cars, that's a good thing.

The day I drove to the Schmidts—that would have been Wednesday, March 5, for those keeping track at home—I heard a song that piqued way too much of my interest. I couldn't make out all the lyrics, but I could tell that the spirit behind the song … the (presumably fictional) character who was singing it … was exactly the kind of irrational and over-dramatic high-maintenance woman that I have found so attractive over the years. Oh, I know women like these are bad for me. I know they are dangerous and crazy. So is alcohol, but that doesn't stop me drinking it. The good part is that I'm old and past it, so I'm no longer in the market for a new romantic partner. But my taste was always a little self-destructive.

The song was "Mama’s Broken Heart," by Miranda Lambert. When I finally googled the lyrics (after getting home again) I found that the song is mostly about the girl fighting with her mother, because her mother wants her to be restrained and lady-like. And while I may find the ideal of "ladyhood" a little artificial, I've got good things to say (from the perspective of practicality and prudence) about self-restraint.

But I also understand the desire to bundle up all that self-restraint into a big bag, and set it alight. Make a bonfire of it all to light up the sky. Good thing I'm not looking for a new girlfriend.

Here's the song:

P.S.: Actually the video is tamer than I expected. She never breaks anything, and she never sets fire to anything. I half-expected her to flip the dining table, or at least to throw her plate of food through the window or across the room. But she never does anything like that. Her Mama's training has sunk deep enough that she's too much of a "lady" to wreck her surroundings with savage abandon.

Maybe my expectations were set by someone with a lot more "crazy" to hide. Or a lot more passion. Or maybe just plain destructive rage. I'm thinking of this post, of course. But any of the posts tagged "Wife loses it" will do just as well.  

  

Winding down the visit

I've been writing several of these posts at once, to back-fill from the time that I was visiting the Schmidts. But I'm getting tired and want dinner; also I'm not sure how much more I have to say that adds anything meaningful to what's come before. So I'll make these notes telegraphic.

Thursday, March 13

Schmidt had a visit from Hospice, to get Ma Schmidt set up in their system, right about the same time Marie had to go to the airport. So I drove her to the airport, an hour each way. By the time I got back, Hospice had left. In the afternoon, they delivered a hospital bed and a bunch of other equipment. Ma Schmidt soiled herself twice, so I went out to get a package of Depends … and some more wine, while I was at it. By the time I got back she had soiled herself a third time, so the Depends were useful.

Friday, March 14

Badly inclement weather, so I wasn't going to go anywhere. First thing in the morning, Ma Schmidt woke up calling for "Help!" I ran to her still in my pajamas. When she saw I was there she settled down, and then said she didn't really need anything. She was just afraid that she had been abandoned. It's not going to be easy for Schmidt when I do leave.

Saturday, March 15

The weather was clear, so I left right after breakfast and drove home. Ma Schmidt was sweet and called me an angel. Schmidt said I helped him "stabilize" himself, which I guess is a good thing. I have to spend the week paying my monthly bills and submitting my taxes. After that, we agreed that we would touch base with each other to see if it made sense for me to come back again. It's still going to be a lot of work for Schmidt. 

 

Veterinarian manqué

Marie flew home today. But one evening while she was here, we sat up talking for a while about Schmidt. And I had one of those moments where I said something and only then realized that I had never known it before—that I had literally figured it out in the process of explaining it to someone else.

We were talking about television. Whenever she is awake, Ma Schmidt has the television on as a distraction. She started this habit back when she could still hear, but suffered from severe tinnitus; the noise from the television blotted out her perception of the ringing in her ears. Now it's just a habit; but because she's too deaf (and too forgetful) to engage in normal conversation, it's not a crazy habit.

But what to watch? Schmidt says he doesn't want the channel turned to national news, because he finds the national news too depressing. (Like most of my friends, Schmidt suffers from some degree of Trump derangement syndrome, and evaluates all developments in national or world news accordingly.) In practice, Schmidt normally switches to the National Geographic Wild network, to watch reruns of The Incredible Dr. Pol, a reality-show about the veterinarian Dr. Jan Pol. Sometimes he changes it up by turning to some other animal documentary instead.

The thing is, I think Ma Schmidt is profoundly bored by all these animal shows!

The Schmidts live on a farm, though they no longer have any animals. (They let a neighbor graze his cattle on their fields.) They have certainly spent a lot of time around animals over the years. But that was never Ma Schmidt's passion. Pa Schmidt was the one who wanted to live on a farm. Ma went along with him because she loved him, and they were married, and, well … you know … "for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health."

This is not a picture of Schmidt.
But in an alternate timeline, it could have been.

How about Schmidt himself? Back when he was a boy, he wanted to be a veterinarian when he grew up. Then he went to college and studied physics. (God only knows why!) When that didn't work out, he came home and carried on his father's artistic craft, though he readily acknowledged that he lacked his father's creative brilliance. But he could make the products that people ordered, and that brought in the small amount of money the Schmidts needed to get by. (They have owned the property outright since they bought it, so there's no need to service a mortgage. And once upon a time they had food wandering around in their fields, though that's no longer true.) 

That's when it hit me. Schmidt has half a dozen cats, or more. He is always adopting and taming feral cats when he finds them on the property, or raising kittens if he didn't get one of his own cats spayed in time. He insisted that Ma take on two cats in her house because it was easier than setting mousetraps; but she never had cats until he told her to. He is still the focus of all animal care on the farm, even though they "no longer have animals."

In other words, Schmidt has found a way to make himself into a (quasi-) veterinarian after all! That's what he wanted to do as a boy, and by heaven that's just what he has done. No wonder he always changes the channel to veterinary shows or animal documentaries. They're not boring to him, because he's genuinely interested in what he can learn from them. He said plainly a couple of days ago that one of the episodes of Dr. Pol taught him about a syndrome affecting cats that he now regularly checks for in his own.

So often people abandon their dreams as they grow up. It's remarkable to realize that Schmidt merely adapted his.

But now that makes me wonder. What did Marie want to be, when she was a girl? And has she achieved it? (See, for example, this post here.)

And how would I answer the same question about myself? 

   

They shoot horses, don't they?

No, I've never seen the movie by that name. But all this time that Schmidt and I—and now Marie—have been supporting Ma Schmidt during her decline, there's been an irony afoot.

When I googled pictures of cats and guns, this is
what I got. It's not the right picture for this post.

The Schmidts' dog is old too, very old by dog standards. He used to be a black dog, but at this point his muzzle is completely grey and he has grey in his coat. He has arthritis, and staggers rather than walking. Most of the time he sits on his cushion on the floor of the family room; but he still gets up several times a day to be let outside to "do his business." He may be old, but he still won't soil the floor indoors.

And the Schmidts have a number of cats. Most of these live over at the other house on the same property—the one Schmidt himself lives in, the one I've never seen the inside of. Two of them live with Ma Schmidt, because her son says it's easier to have cats than to set mousetraps. 

But one of the cats that lives with Schmidt is geriatric as well. And sick. A day or two into my visit, he told me he was going to have to make an appointment with the vet to have this cat put down, because she was too sick to recover, and in pain. This evening he remarked that he had canceled the vet appointment, because his cat was suffering enough that he had to do the job himself.

When we all gathered for dinner in the evening (well, Schmidt and Marie and me … Ma Schmidt stayed in bed), Schmidt was calm and businesslike about it all. But I know he loves his cats. What we could see from him was the iron self-discipline that has become such a habit.

And of course nobody commented on the irony that Ma Schmidt and the cat are in very similar situations. So is the dog. But we have to treat them differently. The law says so, and common sentiment says so. "Simple humanity" says so—whatever that is. But what exactly is the logic that tells us to treat human animals so differently from feline animals, even when their situations are so strikingly similar?

They shoot horses, don't they?